By Drew Danko                                                                                                                        Online Editor                                                                                                                              Photo by Drew Danko

Trailing by five points midway through its first set against the Oswego East Wolves Tuesday evening, it seemed that the girls’ volleyball team had not gotten its first game anxiety out of the way at the Mustang Mania scrimmage last Friday. However, that all changed after Coach Dave MacDonald called his first time out of the two set win over the Wolves at the Mustangs’ home court.

“We were playing at a faster pace, and after I called my timeout I just told them to relax, have fun, and play our style of volleyball,” MacDonald said.

The Mustangs tried to catch up to the Wolves for much of the first set, and after their first timeout, they tied them at 18-18, and finally closed out the first set 25-20. After slowing down the pace of the game, setters Miranda Cada and Sydney Aitchison notched eight and 10 assists respectively through the match.

“[After the timeout] slowing the tempo down with our setters helped us. Our setters were shooting the ball out too fast to Ashley and Natalie, and slowing it down allowed them to take their approach and get a good swing on the ball,” MacDonald added.

Senior captain and outside hitter Ashley Walker also believed after their time out, hitting allowed them to finish out the set. “Hitting was really strong at the end, our setters were getting the balls up there to each of our hitters and we were just swinging away. I think that is going to win us a lot of games this season: focusing and hitting when we need to,” Walker, who managed three kills in the match, said.

Walker also served a game-high seven aces, three of which were at the end of the first game, which helped carry the momentum to the 25-14 win in the second game. The Mustangs started with a quick lead in the second set to help them win the game and match. “We came out more excited and calm in the second set. The serves helped us, and we got our middles more involved and our blocking was better,” senior captain and right side hitter Alexis Bass said.

The Mustangs play Glenbard East Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. at home. “I think we’ll have a lot more confidence going into tomorrow’s game, Glenbard East is going to be scrappy like tonight, but it won’t be easy. If we come out confident and swinging, we will be just fine,” senior captain and outside hitter Natalie Krasuski, who tied for a game-high six kills, said.